Vinny
In Romania 
Vinny
In Romania 
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Newest Photos As of Monday June, 3 2002Renne's Visit Valkyre Hiking Trip Instructors & Group 14 Tha Hooka |
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Links Mangalia Page Mare Nostrum's Link Dolphin Link Lisa's Page Peace Corps
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I'll share a few stories form work so far. If you would like to see the related pics, go to the "My First Few Days" link. If parts don't make sense it probably because of the Romlish, (Romanian-English Slurr) or a inside joke.
In the past I have had some unique jobs, but nothing that prepared for the past few days.
The first day of "work".
I grab the “maxi”taxi (they don't seem so maxi with 30+ folks
aboard) for the 1.5 hour daily roadtrip (usually standing) from Mangalia
to Constanta, where I'm working out of for 2 months. (Steph’s joke
applies here: Q-How many Romanians can you fit on a bus. A- All of them)
The usual people sneezing on the back of your neck and daily fix of "Te
Iubesc". I always feel as though in a packed discoteca that no one
wants to be at. Just once I am going to start dancin and bust out some vin
for everyone. (Although, today they made my day by playin the best 80's
ballad ever written, "Every Rose has its Thorn" by Poison.)
Once in the office, I plan for a day of FINDING OUT JUST WHAT THE
HECK I'M SUPPOSED TO BE DOING!
And I got it.
My director, Lucian, comes in and spunes me that there has been a
horrible tragedy in the Black Sea. Four Turkish fishing vessels operating
illegally within Romanian waters (& with illegal nets) had been boarded
and retained.
Within their nets, 73 harbor porpoises were found drown.
Mare Nostrum (my NGO) immediately wrote a press release and started an attempt to quantify the extent of the disaster. Next thing I know I'm crusin back down the coast to Vama Veche to find anymore casualties. Never thought I'd be pulling up decaying cetaceans (sea mammals) from the Black Sea in my "office clothes". Here I am with rubber gloves, tape measure, button-up shirt, dress shoes, and sunglasses, tryin to ask fishermen in "Romanian" if they have seen any dead dolphins.
By the way the fishermen were operating in a “protected area”.
The first one I find is a young harbor porpoise beached about 10 meters
from this rather large and absolutely naked lady (Vama Veche is a kinda
hippy beach). I didn't know at first which one to survey. She never even
knew this nasty decaying was lying right next to her nasty naked body. We
walk a few more km along the beach and, after literally scaling a few cliffs,
we find one more porpoise that day.
Sunday
I awake in my good friend Mi's pad after a night at the local jazz
club (if in Constanta, check what is playin at the Phoenix Club, it's kinda
like the House of Blues) at 10 in the morning to my mobile phone a-ringin.
It is Lucian again, "We need to go survey the beaches north of Constanta,
meet at the office at 10:30". O.K., well first thing I thought is "where
the hell in Constanta am I” Mi gave me some knowledge of the direction
I needed to head, and I start runnin.
I get to the office to find Lucian & Steliana (my counterpart) in the Blue Dacia that we call “U.S. Blue” (because USAID paid for it) with a bike on top. I hope in, still smelling like the bar the night before, to go who knows where. 30-45 min. later we are drivin down some back road, in a completely remote & undeveloped are, towards the beach.
We stop on top of this small cliff and Lucian says, “See that stand of trees along the shore down there, start there and we will meet you about 10 km up the beach”. “Uummm, O.K., what is that structure over there?”, I asked Lucian. “This area is a military base.”, he says casually. ”Will they stop me?” I asked after some hesitation. “Probably, just tell them you are an American, they want into NATO, they will let you by.”, he says jokingly. “Well, O.K., suces!”
So I take off, solo, sliding down this cliff towards the beach, in my new
fashionable shoes & tight euro-trash tight jeans, carrying this “Toys
‘R Us” quality kids’ bike. I go barreling over the dunes,
as if storming the beach, and start the “survey” for more dolphins.
After going about 15 meters (you do the conversion), I figure out that this
is going to be a looong day. The sand was very thick & non-compact and
the bike is made for a 90 pound 10 year old, not a 220-pound klutz. As I
peddle, my knees hit the handlebars and the seat slides forward, making
me look like a one-man circus act. The only place I can get anywhere is
near the water line, where the sand is more compact. As I attempt to proceed
down the beach, I start to peel off clothes. First the shoes then the socks,
then belt, and then the shirt all go into the backpack. I role up the pants
a bit and look like an overgrown Huck Fin cruzin down the empty beach.
Once the already tight pants got wet, tighter, and heavier, I start thinking
should I go RO, no one is around here and it would make things a lot easier.
No I better not, there could be some military guys around.
So I peddle & peddle, huffin & puffin, wishin I had not smoked those
3 cigarettes last night and had eaten something today. After having to wade
through the water to get around some rocks, I decide to.......... yes, go
RO.
The pants come off.
I put the sopping wet jeans around my neck, and take off with nothing on
except my tighties & sunglasses.
No dolphins after the first 4 km, but of course around that time two military
dudes with large guns & uniforms come out of nowhere. They look at the
bike, the pants (or lack of) and me and start spitting all kindz of Romanian
at me, and I am speechless. This situation wasn’t in the language training
sessions. I tried to say something about what I’m was doing, “Vreau
morti dephinii”, but that certainly didn’t help. So I go back
to the good ‘ol “Sunt din SUA”. They look at me for a moment
then tell me --I think-- not to go in the direction that I just came from
(later I find out that they were running military drills). I spune “Nu
problema, eu merge acolo” and set off, leaving them staring.
That obstacle overcome I think, “What is this, some type of initiation
or hazing for my organization? Why am I riding a kids bike along the Black
Sea in my underwear looking for dead dolphins?".
Along my journey to who knows where, I get a phone call from a friend. She
asks “what are you doing right now”, and I don’t even try
to explain. “I’m at the beach working. I’ll call you back
later”. She doesn’t believe me “Sure, whatever”. Then
my director calls “Vince, we are at the meeting point, where are you?”.
I look up the beach, nothing but sand & surf as far as the eye can render
and spune “I am somewhere where I don’t know where I am, be there
immediate”.
Two hours go by and I’ve given up on the damn “bike” (for
my butt’s sake) and take to jogging along side it. After running in
my undies for a while, I finally come upon a dolphin corpse. It was a common
dolphin still entangled in the net that killed it, forte rau. So I pull
out my instruments: rubber gloves, protocol, and tape measure. I realize
then that the protocol is all in Romanian, yep. So I sit there in the sand
in my undies and try to interpret just what “scientific” measurements
I was supposed to do. No buna, so I just take the measurements that I feel
are relevant, take some photos, the location, and proper species identification.
Lucian keeps calling “Are you OK?” Trying to hear over the
wind and my own heavy breathing I get out “Kinda, be there imediat".
So I set forth again, at this point I’m walkin and thinkin about apa
while the sun beats me up. Then out of nowhere, coming over the sand dunes
is my counterpart and director.
Yep, they have both seen me in my underwear now. I try to act all casual
about it, but I was rather embarrassed. They just kinda laugh as I put my
pants back on.
Day 3
I set out with an ex-military guy, Christen, who now does PR for our
organization. We are to finish surveying the area that I did not cover the
day before (for some reason). We battle the rough back roads, pushing the
Dacia its the limit and getting lost occasionally. This time I am prepared,
or I think I am; flip-flops and swimsuit are my uniform of choice. Unfortunately,
I did not learn my lesson with the bike. He drops me off again in the middle
of nowhere. Later I found out it is one of the most remote areas of Romania.
After 0.5 km, I want to throw the damn bike into the sea. The wind is blowing like crazy against the direction I’m going, of course the waves are huge, and there is basically no compact sand line to ride on this time. Jogging in flip-flops is fun. I find another harbor porpoise, then a dead duck, then a dead cow all washed up along the shoreline (if you want photos of that let me know). I’m wondering, “is this the Black Sea or the Dead Sea?” Then at the halfway point I find a huge bottlenose dolphin. It is not easy dragging a 2-meter decaying dolphin onto the shore with the surf pounding the rancid carcass on ya. I wrestle it ashore and try to measure it using a tape measure flapping all-over the place in the wind.
After pe josing the 3-hour jog to the rendezvous point, I find the ‘ol
Dacia good and stuck in the sand. Back home this used to happen all the
time, so I think “nici o problema”, but I grossly overestimated
the power of a Dacia. We find an old WWII machine gun bunker and break off
some stones to use. So we use the stones from this bunker and a few cow
femurs and rib bones that we found (I hope it was from a cow) to put under
the tires. After 1 hour of playing like Hercules trying to push this Dacia
(no I did not drive), nu merg. So, Christen takes the bike and rides into
the nearest town to find someone and I sat there with the Dacia staring
at the Black Sea, swatting mosquitoes and thinking what tha hell have I
gotten myself into.
Christen comes back after 2.5 hours (bitchin about the bike also) with this
HUGE fishermen driving this old school 1950 army jeep. He spits something
in what I think is Romanian and yanks us out with no problem. We buy a beer
(fara alcool) for ourselves at the nearest bar and head home. Since then
I’ve been in the office doing research.
Moral of the story, Nu Stiu. And don’t ask about the bike helmet.
